The impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on the minerals industry has not yet played out, but South Africa’s, and the world’s, ability to generate massive amounts of data and integrate and use them will undoubtedly improve, leading to an acceleration in mineral exploration in the future, states SRK Consulting, an international organisation of professional engineers and scientists.

With mineral exploration requiring substantial capital investment over long periods and only a minute percentage of early-stage projects ever resulting in the development of an operating mine, advances in exploration technology are focused on reducing the time it takes to produce exploration results, thus speeding up decision-making.